Basically I straight swapped it in grandpa spec condition 3 years ago for a red HQ that I owned at the time. I thrashed around in it for several months and enjoyed the cruisability of it.

I got a little spirited one day and during a maneuver, I got some nasty noises, then as I was driving home after work the gearbox slowly died and I just managed to got it in the spot to change the box.

This is when the mod bug hit...The car went on bricks for a few weeks as I decided what to do. I took the pan off the box and found a crack literally from one side to the other sideways through it.A week earlier I had found a manual ED wreck and pulled everything except the pedal box out for a conversion kit as an idea at the time.A few more weeks passed as I saved and planned. A manual fairlane it was.

I got the flywheel machined and bought a clutch kit through a mate who worked at the local brake and clutch.He also heard of another bloke I knew who ad rebuilt some T5 boxes during his apprentice years, so a few phone calls scored me a reconditioned box that was practically brand new (never had oil in it) for $300I got a EA pedal box, gearbox loom, and crossmember through the wreckers and after gathering the small extras I woke up on a Saturday bright and early ready to attempt the alleged 10 hour job of swapping the pedal box.

4 hours later and I was doing up the last few bolts for the steering column as I checked the time mate was fiddling underneath with the spigot etc and we bolted up the shiny purple clutch and the box slid in like a dream.

Got it all hooked up, clutch cables and wiring, had a few issues with finding the right bolts for the pressure plate.

LOVED the instant twin wheel spin, and cruised around as it was for a few more months.

I also started working at repco at that time so I slowly gathered parts for the car, Complete set of Nolathane bushes front to rear.King spring super lows for the front and heavy duty super lows for the rear. (dropped the car to a dead even height, still have the part numbers if you want the same)Monroe were just releasing the new GT Sport short shock line at the time and a pair of shocks an struts were highly recommended so I got a full set.A Nolathane strut brace. Front and rear slotted DBA rotors and Bendix padsAll car audio components (I'll do somthing on that later)

After gathering it all, I called on a mate with a compressor and spray gun, we put the car up on blocks in the driveway again and we stripped all the necessary parts off, cleaned and sprayed black except for the watts link, sway bars and radius rods we did red.Fitted the bushes. Aren't old radius rod bushes fun to remove? Haha.Got the struts together and reassembled all the rest after painting some sound deadner in the wheel arches all with no issues.

We finally dropped it to the ground rear first and started to get pretty excited at how freaking LOW it was sitting and after dropping the front an standing back looking in silence at it my mate turned to me and said "Its not a Fairlane... It's a Lowlane!"And the name has stayed.

I wired up a kill switch and a set of thermo fans, I swapped the standard coil for a Bosch GT40 unit, and got some 8.8mm topgun leads, also painted the rocker cover and intake manifold Ford Competition Blue,

I fitted a pod filter on a 90 degree mandrel bent 3in pipe.

Also I made a custom gauge holder and fitted a water temp gauge, I swapped the back doors to manual windows (the regs were shot and I had some manual ones for free),

I got a engineless EB XR8, so I fitted the XR8 seats and the steering wheel, and did some other minor cosmetic mods.

I drove it around for a while longer until I picked up a 5.0lt NC LTD.

I parked the Lowlane and enjoyed the V8 for a while, I swapped occasionally and loved owning 2 similar cars (so many photos lost waaghh!!)

HOWEVER! During this pireod of mulitvehicular bliss, I was out on a cruise in the Lowlane when tragedy struck and I rear-ended an 80 series on a blind corner.

The Lane didn't fare so well it seemed and was towed to a mates yard where it sadly sat for a while longer as I moped for a bit and decided what to do. (again...more photos lost)

Exploration revealed that the damage wasn't as bad as I first thought and I could see it being fixedA couple months later the bloke who sold me the LTD wanted to buy it back, so I made a possibly immoral profit from the deal and armed with some cash I bought a complete ED sedan as a donor car, rented a mig welder, and with the room in a mates shed I under took some serious panel beating.

The the water bottle had shattered and the battery took it's place and the headlight surround filled the gap, the power steer pump was bent back and the radiator had smashed the thermos into the water pump.I stripped it all back and drilled out all the spotwelds and took the front wheel arch from the strut join and off the chassis rail to the headlight mount and the top radiator support off the donor car, removed the bent scrap of the same part off the Lowlane and fitted and welded it all back on. (cue more lost pics)I swapped the front end to the end off the XR8 I got the seats from and bolted I all back together.The Lowlane was back on the road! Whoop whoop!

I had moved on by now from Repco to a wreckers (the same one I got the pedal box from actually) and managed to score a set of extractors off an EF that already had a cat with a flange welded to it, a 2.5in turbo muffler and enough pieces of 2.5in exhaust to weld up my own system which I think sounds pretty good and, although it dose have a very slight drone to it, it certainly gives the idle some growl.

I lost my licence for 3 months not long after (a whole nother story there) and recently caught the plane to Adelaide with the darling wife and child for a holiday and came to like port pirie so we decided to move.

On the week we were supposed to simply fly back up, pack the car, and cruise back, the head gasket decided to blow... At least I wasn't half way to Adelaide though... so after a stretched extra 2 days, a re-welded an machined head, a new gasket set, some smashed knuckles, oil in my eye, and a wicked nasty virus that I caught on the first day I started the work, the car was ready to go, and with a new set of plugs, and a quick timing adjustment we were on the road.

The car drove sweet and didn't miss a beat, I got almost 750klm to the first tank of full highway use too! At Pimba however the battery positive cable must have been too close to the extractors because the plastic melted and it shorted on the engine mount. A shifter, a roll of tape and a lucky stroke nothing electrical got fried an away we went.

I picked up a rip shift kit last week off eBay so this weekend should be fun with a wash and the first gearbox oil change too.

So thats pretty much the evolution of my car so far, I hope I didn't bore you off the thread haha.

*Sams* Yeah it took 60% of the battery to type it!*eb_dean* havnt got the update just yet but yeH, spell check was just legendary!

I've certainly grown onto this car, at first it was just for family reliability, but now I know more about them I reckon they are perfect for sleepers. Long and low with a bit of power and I've had Mr V6 commy and a little rice cooker wondering why he can't catch the crappy grandpa ford!

Alrite, nice n bright Saturday today. Definately a wash on the cards and some photos so check back this arvo.But I don't have any loctite so I think Ill leave the shifter till next week.

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